Tootfinder

And so the humongous flat antenna of the direct-to-cell comsat #BlueBird 6 has unfolded, "the Largest Commercial Communications Array Antenna Ever" as the AST press release https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260210108166/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Successfully-Completes-Unfolding-of-BlueBird-6-the-Largest-Commercial-Communications-Array-Antenna-Ever-Deployed-in-Low-Earth-Orbit crows: now it's now up to the astronomical community to observe it and determine its magnitude. Are the Block 2 BlueBirds worse than the already outrageously bright Block 1 satellites - or did the promised (!) countermeasures reduce their impact? In any case dozens more of these satellites are to be launched this year, followed by hundreds more ...

Now that #BlueBird 6 is up (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251222922862/en/AST-SpaceMobile-Announces-Successful-Orbital-Launch-of-BlueBird-6-the-Largest-Commercial-Communications-Array-Ever-Deployed-in-Low-Earth-Orbit) the question is - after deploying the huge antenna: https://x.com/guo_lin99725/status/2003717302190243904 - how bright it will be in the sky: the earlier BlueBirds were obscenely bright as the paper https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/544/1/L15/8251664 has shown.

At 3:24 UTC tonight the LVM3-M6 should launch the first Block-2 #BlueBird satellite in India: webcasts at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNpY3wLE3nE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdATsLffyU from ~2:55 UTC. Astronomers fear the new satellite series because of their humongous antenna surface though AST in https://ast-science.com/connecting-the-world-while-protecting-the-skies/ claims they are mitigating the brightness - in any case numerous launches are planned: https://x.com/AST_SpaceMobile/status/2002752882454540649